“Big corruption” makes the news in Senegal but “little corruption” is everywhere — little bribes, paid by little people to lesser bureaucrats.

Karim Wade, centre, the son of former Senegalese president Abdoulaye Wade, is blocked by police as he tries to approach journalists and gathered supporters outside the office of the special prosecutor investigating him on charges of embezzled funds, in March 2013. The Court Against Illicit Enrichment is scheduled next month to hear the case that he illicitly acquired a fortune of $242 million (U.S.).

DAKAR, SENEGAL —There are two lines for most interactions with an official in Senegal, I have learned.

There’s the regular, painful line, which drags you though one airless room after another until you are weak and weepy and as dusty as the plastic plants around you.

And then there’s the unofficial line, which spits you out like a North American car wash, sparkling and as good as new in no time. But that one causes pain of another kind.

It is the bribers’ line.

It took me nine long trips to the Police des Affaires Étrangères station in search of my resident’s visa to understand this.

My eighth trip had been that very morning.

The police officer once again flipped through my ever-thickening folder of documents. But instead of telling me I again hadn’t “bien compris” (understood well) and was missing yet another piece of stamped paper, she pronounced me finished. All I had left to do was pay my fee.

“Come back at 3 p.m. with the bank receipt,” she instructed.

I felt like a prisoner in the depth of a forgotten cell seeing the light for the first time. I was free!

But when I arrived at 3 p.m., I sensed a trap. Two officers had removed their uniforms. Their white undershirts hung from nails in the wall.

The third officer had one bare foot up on her desk. She was cutting her toenails.

The cab driver repeated what all the others had said on all my other despondent trips home from the police station. How much had I paid in cab fare over the weeks? Just give her what they call in Wolof a “sacred handshake!”

But how do you bribe a police officer in a police station? My Canadian brain could more easily imagine a lunch trip to Mars.

The issue made international headlines five years ago, when President Abdoulaye Wade gave the outgoing representative of the International Monetary Fund a “goodbye gift” at his farewell dinner. It was an envelope with 100,000 euros and $50,000 (U.S.) cash inside.

Wade was defeated in 2012 by Macky Sall, who ran on an anticorruption platform. He’s since opened an anti-fraud and corruption office, passed a law requiring ministers to announce their net worth, and dusted off the Court Against Illicit Enrichment. It is scheduled next month to hear the case against Karim Wade, the former government’s “super minister” and president’s son, charged with illicitly acquiring a fortune of $242 million (U.S.).

“We are already seeing the effect of the new laws,” says Cheikh Mouhamed Tidiane, a lawyer with Forum Civil, the local branch of Transparency International. “A lot of people don’t dare to take bribes now.”

He is talking about big bribes and “big corruption,” though. Here, there is another category called “little corruption.” It’s for little bribes, paid by little people to lesser bureaucrats.

So far, there is no campaign to combat that.

Once my eyes were opened, I saw little corruption everywhere: The customs officer at the airport who said he was “thirsty”; the traffic cop who declared our car had broken a new law forbidding tinted windows; the army officer who said he’d let me pass to the bank machine inside the airport’s departures hall if I’d give him “something”.

After 10 months of waiting in lines in Senegal, I understand why people pay petty bribes. My time is worth more than the standard $5 “handshake” for expediency. But my Canadian stomach can’t digest it. What is the state worth, if you can buy a piece for just $5?

I have been here long enough to know I won’t win a solo fight with a Senegalese army officer. Instead, I waited the 15 minutes until he went on break and then produced my passport to his replacement.

My reward: the ATM in the departures hall was working that day.

Catherine Porter is a Star columnist who has gone on leave for a year to live in Dakar, Senegal. She writes about her adventures each week in the Life section. She can be reached at catherine_porter@rogers.com . You can follow her daily snapshots on Twitter @porterthereport.

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